Parse Strategy Guide

This guide uses Flamethrower49's Basic Outline, which is ironic considering what Flamethrowers do to Pinecones. These guides are a community effort and if you can provide any suggestions or constructive criticism, I will modify them accordingly.

Parse is 1/3 Legacy, 1/3 Visionary, and 1/3 something new. Turns out, this combination of traits is fantastic! The way you'll play Parse will vary depending on the role she needs to play for the team. She might not deal much damage herself, but she boosts her allies nearly as much as Legacy. If you only have room for a single support character on your team, Parse is your go-too-gal.

The Combo:

Critical Multiplier is Parse's main combo card. You won't need it every game, but it can be useful if your allies need sustainable damage boosts. It might not be a Galvanize, as it only applies to a single attack of a single hero, but it is a passive ability, meaning that Parse is not chained to a team-support role (the ability Pinpoint Shot actually works well for Parse, because it allows her to chip in without playing a valuable attack card). Once you get your critical multiplier, there are many ways to activate it. Segmentation Fault is by far the best, as it is reliable and it kills an annoying ongoing or environment card. Next to the Argent Adept's Sarabande of Destruction, that's the best ongoing/environment removal in the game. Recompile and Syntactic Analysis are both great as well, for they don't deplete your hand (in fact, they add to it!), and they can activate the card multiple times in one go. Snap Decision in your final option, and a good one too, for it helps cheat your other cards into play. Just be warned that using it will burn through your hand very fast. Parse can usually handle it, having the ton of card draw she has, but be careful. Note that you can give the same target several critical multipliers, which can result in some pretty ridiculous damage increases (although the wording of Critical Multiplier will prevent this from working twice with a multi-hit attack like Fanatic's Exorcism, so be careful). Also note that Snap Decision can be useful independent of Critical Multiplier, considering the amount of useful cards Parse has. If you can get it out early it can allow you to set up for whatever situation you need to twice as fast, so long as you can keep drawing cards.

Other Damage Enhancers:

If Mr. Fixer is the king of irreducible damage, Parse must be the queen. Targeting Arrow is a great card: it essentially is a Galvanize, so long as people focus on the target you hit with it. Combine that with Critical Multiplier and your teammates—or yourself—could be getting +2 damage boosts thanks to Parse. Reveal the Flaws won't be useful every game, but some games it will be killer to rob the villain of their armor (Advanced Apostate comes to mind). Between the Lines is an okay card by itself, but if you use it on a hero that already has a damage boost, it becomes amazing (this is where Snap Decision is really great; it allows you to get off a Critical Multiplier before the play phase, and it allows you to play before the play phase, so you can theoretically play something that will discard another card, allowing you to use two critical multipliers, which then becomes irreducible. That could be very, very painful for the Villain.) Exploit Vulnerability, while not an irreducible damage card, can still be fantastic against Villains with a lot of minions. Another advantage Parse has over Legacy is that she can very often benefit from her own damage modifiers, while he requires the Legacy Ring to do so.

Card Manipulation:

Data-Mining is an interesting card. Early in the game it is pretty useless; late in the game it could be salvation. Don't be afraid to throw it away for a Critical Multiplier, but also be on the lookout for the right situation to use it. (Parse is also the master of ongoing/environment removal, which is a nice added bonus of playing her).

Quick Calculation is not a great card, but it can be useful to replenish your hand if you keep using Snap Decision. You can even play it with Snap Decision to prevent Snap Decision from reducing your hand size.

Gauge and Extrasensory Awareness are both Visionary-like cards, and both can be useful in the right situation. Extrasensory Awareness is great in that it allows you to not only know what's coming from the Villain deck, but also alter it. Gauge, on the other hand, will rarely be as useful, but it does have an advantage in that it can be used to support allies, and it draws you a card. You only have two copies of each, so getting one of either will usually be helpful; having both out at the same time is wasteful. Given the choice between the two, always go with Extrasensory Awareness.

Buffer Overflow is an great card. It is a nice “safety net," especially if you don't have Extrasensory Awareness so you don't know what's coming. If your teammates are slow builders like Absolute Zero or Bunker, this card is doubly useful, as it can shield them from a devastating ongoing/equipment loss. Get it out as quickly as you can.

Finally, Updated Intel. In some matches this won't work all that well, because it will only get to go off once each turn. Against some villains however, like Omnitron, the Ennead, Friction, and others, you will be able to use the effect multiple times each turn, which can add up very quickly. It works especially well with Setback and Omnitron-X, because you can help them get a good card on top of their deck to then Risk or Timeshift into play, respectively.

Weaknesses:

Defense. Parse has none of it, and her HP is rather low. You can manipulate cards so that you don't get smacked, but it that fails (or you don't get Extrasensory Awareness in time) you are in big trouble.

Teamups:

Like Legacy, any team will appreciate Parse's presence. Characters like K.N.Y.F.E., Fanatic, and Mr. Fixer will appreciate her damage buffs more than most. The Naturalist or the Scholar are good choices for protecting her. The Sentinels are able to deal multiple-burst damage, and they have healing powers, which makes them ideal teammates for Parse.

Updated Intel is great. If you are facing someone like Cosmitron, who plays lot's of cards, you can use it to stall the deck or set up for a possible timeshift. It's definently a more situational card, but it's pretty nice. It can also be downright broken if used with Maintainace Bay where you can recycle one shots over and over

Updated Intel is great. If you are facing someone like Cosmitron, who plays lot's of cards, you can use it to stall the deck or set up for a possible timeshift. It's definently a more situational card, but it's pretty nice. It can also be downright broken if used with Maintainace Bay where you can recycle one shots over and over

I'm confused; I assume you mean Omnitron, but Timeshift is an Omnitron-X ability, and what's this about a matinence bay? Isn't that a Freedom Tower card? That's way too situational to be considered here I think.

He meant all of them: Omnitron, especially the cosmic version, spams targets like crazy, as do The Chairman, The Dreamer, Voss, Apostate, etc. When playing against a villain like that, Updated Intel basically lets look at every deck in a given round and manipulate. Which can be combined with Timeshift if playing Omni X, Setback's innate and a couple of other innates I can't mention yet. Works really well with TLT as well

That's the problem with a Parse guide, there are a ton of ways to go about playing Parse. I have never played her for Critical Multiplier, in fact I've only ever played it once. (intended to play recompile the next round, but stuff came up and it never got played)

Mostly I play her like I play Fixer, don't build for the future play the best card for the immediate situation, most of the time that ends the game before you set up.

The best cards for Parse vary with the role she is filling on the team, and what is needed of her, and even where in order she is.

For example Gauge, Extrasensory Awareness and Segmentation Fault are awesome when you are the first hero turn, since you can undo nasty round ruining cards or set up something fun with Gauge, or just give everyone a heads up on what they should prepare for.

I love Between the Lines, Impossible Shot and Syntactic analysis anytime, but at the end of the round they are fantastic for cleaning up messes that you don't want to let spill over into the next round.

I honestly think Critical hit is overrated. Her card draw is nice too, but every card she has is so good, most of the time when Critical hit is your best card the match isn't in danger anyway. When the going gets tough, Parse has a lot better things to offer.

Her Best card is Buffer Overflow. It is deck crushing against almost any villain. Villains almost all have a card or two that are going to crush you, being able to say "Um, sorry Maria, but instead of summoning your entire crew, how about we play the next card, thanks." is devastating.

Irreducible Damage, Buffer Overflow and her crazy amounts of deck control make her excel at taking on many of the toughest villains in the Box, she's one of the best to bring to a wicked fight.

Well, maybe I'm the one who's been playing her wrong. I posted these for the community; it makes sense that they should be a community effort. As more people chip in with their advice, I'll modify the guide.

That means you can multiply the multiplier, unless there's a rule saying other wise.

I had one turn where i already had 3 Critical Multipliers in play, and Snap Decision. I discarded for SSnap Decision, giving +3, played a recompile, giving +9, and then i played the targeting arrow. Doesn't that mean that, for the next attack, my target has +12?

Parse can be a tad squishy but every time I play as her I don't feel like I have bad cards but that I have choices. You have a card or cards that aren't useful or good choices discard them to a Segmentation Fault, Snap Decision, or Recompile to help the team or yourself out. The most valuable card to me in her deck is Extrasensory Awareness as there are very few cases where it is not helpful. That is the best villain deck manipulation in the game to me.

Awesome! I've gotta say, prior to seeing this guide and helping to point me in a proper direction, I'd viewed Parse as kind of a throw-away hero, some projectile damage, some card draw, and that was about it.

AFTER reading this though, success stories include: giving a +50 damagae bonus (over the course of a couple of rounds, but it stacked up QUICK), fighting against the Ennead and having such a minor issue they only had their initial people pop up(kept throwing away their cards that would have flipped up another member), and keeping such a tight reign against Grand Warlord Voss that, until the evironment threw a nasty monkey wrench into the mix, it really didn't feel like a fight but a total slaughter(after the environmental shenanigans, we lost within one or two rounds).

Parse has quickly become one of my absolutely favorite heros, and some one I'd have no issues playing for many games to come.

Fugue State Parse is better overall since she can setup quickly and also can setup other heroes more quickly. She loses regular damage but often I would stop using it after I found Extrasensory Awareness or Gauge anyways.

Card for card, I agree. Parse can do everything - deck stacking, ongoing/environment destruction, irreducible damage, damage buffing, card draw, multiple card plays and straight up villain card denial. Her only weakness is no defense/healing (had few games where she gets caught in the lowest hero cycle and she goes down quickly) but she has many ways to stack the deck that it tends not to matter much. Fugue State is an excellent promo for an amazing deck.

I think one of the things that makes Parse powerful is her ability to react to events that are ordinarily bad news for the heroes. Have to discard a card? Critical Multiplier! Have to discard your hand? ALL THE MULTIPLIERS! Don't like the villain card that got played? Erase it!

It's kind of interesting that she came in the same set as KNYFE, who has several Ongoing and Equipment cards that let her do stuff when they're destroyed, which is similarly usually something the heroes don't like.

In fact, Parse and KNYFE's promos also dovetail nicely, with powers to let the team manipulate the bottom cards of a deck. Now I want to play a game with those two involved...

One neat thing about Fugue State and Rogue Agent, it opens up interesting possibilities for other characters and new interactions/perspectives. Most people might use Dark Visionary's base power and Nightmist's Astral Premonition to control the villain or environment deck, but with the promos, using them on hero decks becomes more attractive. Bring What You Need and Arcane Cadence also stack the bottom of decks, changing the priorities there -- instead of banishing a card you don't think you need to the bottom, put in the one you'd like to play out of turn. Same with Quick Calculation.

As an alternative to Snap Decision, Augmented Ally combos beautifully with Fugue Parse - you get an extra power use so you can control the Villain deck with Extrasensory Awareness while still having a power open for Neural Processing, and the *cost* of doing so doubles the effectiveness of Neural Processing.